How did your reading go this month? Did you read a fantasy title for October? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan. I honestly had no idea what I was expecting, but this was a pleasant read.

Growing up in a famine-stricken village in 1345 China, a girl and a boy are dealt two vastly different fates. The boy is destined for greatness, while the girl, nothingness. Under harsh Mongol rule, starving peasants dream of greatness through stories passed down through generations. When the boy is told that he is destined for greatness, those around him wonder how that will ever be true, but the girl’s fate of nothingness is to be expected in a time of great famine when girls are considered wasteful. The girl refuses to be nothing. When bandits attack her family leaving the boy and their father dead, the girl steps into her brother’s identity and enters a monastery as a young male novice. While there, the girl learns her limits and what she is willing to do to stay hidden from the heavens and her own fate. When the monastery is destroyed, the girl must find the courage to claim her brother’s fate and reach for greatness.

She Who Became the Sun was a wild ride. I chose this book because it was billed as a reimagining of the ride to power of the Ming Dynasty’s founding emperor. It also won a wide variety of awards and was the finalist for even more. If I hadn’t chosen this book for the Online Reading Challenge, I don’t think I would have picked it up on my own, but I’m glad I decided to give it a try. This is the first in the duology with the second called He Who Drowned the World.

Next month, we will be reading detective or crime fiction!

In addition to following the Online Reading Challenge here on our Info Cafe blog, you can join our Online Reading Challenge group on Goodreads and discuss your reads!